"The moment desires and distractions crop up in the mind, they should be weeded out. The destruction of sensuous desires is akin to the destruction of ignorance. Desirelessness leads to the peace of salvation. Constant effort is necessary to attain such bliss. With the realization of the Supreme and Sustaining Reality of the Universe, one sees that all worldly objects are false and unreal to the core,--mere illusions, nothing else, like bubbles on the deep."

Prince Ram asked: "Tell us, O Saint, how one can destroy ignorance?"

Rishi Vashisht, the Preceptor, replied; "Through ignorance it is, O Ram, that the Atma, which is eternal, is forced to go though the cycle of births and deaths. To conceive of the illusion, which besets the embodied soul as real, is ignorance, and a barrier to seeing true reality. A man, free from births and deaths, and realizing the all-refulgent reality of the Universe, perceives that desires are a creation of Maya. Extinction of lower desires is the extinction of ignorance."

Prince Ram asked his preceptor, the Holy Vashisht: "All visible objects of name and form, O Lord, you say are illusions, and that illusion is destroyed by meditation on the true reality of the Atma. Pray, what is this thing called Atma?"

Rishi Vashisht replied: "It is the Wisdom of the Brahma (God), who has no visible form. All things of the world, perceived through our senses, contain the essence of Brahma, such as growth, mind, birth and death, which are illusory, not real. Brahma alone is true and self-existent, the Creator and Upholder of the Universe. Out of that Supreme Soul, which is Eternal, Immortal, and Absolute, arose the intelligence that governs

the Universe. This Atmic Jnan is the Absolute Self shining every where.

"From the Brahma arise different forces and powers like waves and currents in the ocean. To realize Oneself as Brahma is the goal; but to know the soul as distinct from the body is to know the truth and be free from ignorance. It is only the fancy of fools, that gives illusion the garb of reality. The wise have pierced the veil of illusion by the shafts of their Jnan (Wisdom). Know then, this body, this wealth, these kith and kin are not real. Atma alone is real and eternal. Perform actions in this world without being absorbed by them."

Sri Ram then said: "How marvelous it is that illusion, which is unreal, should cause so much pain and suffering in the world, and that which appears so solid and concrete should be but a manifestation of Maya. O Master, I cannot believe this Universe really came out of the unreality. How do you account for the pains of King Lavana?"

Saint Vashisht answered: "King Lavana was not bound by the results of his actions, as he performed them without attachment, and with complete indifference to the outcome. One morning